Rahul Narvekar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was on Sunday elected as the Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in the fir🧸st leg of the two-day special se🔜ssion of the assembly that started on Sunday. Narvekar is a first-time legislator.
While the speaker was elected on Sunday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's four-day old govern♈ment will face ဣa floor test on Monday.
BJP's Narvekar was facing Shiv Sena MLA and Uddhav Thackeray loyalist R☂ajan Salvi, who was the joint candidate of the Sena-NCP-Congress combine. While Narvekar got 164 votes, Rajan got 107 votes.
Rebel Shiv Sena MLAs who support Shinde returned to Mumbai fr🐼om Goa on Saturday evening on the eve of the Assembly session, and were lodged in a luxury hotel in south Mumbai, where Vidhan Bhavan, venue of the floor test, is located.
As many as 50 MLAs who support Shinde, including 39 rebel legislators of the Shiv Sena, on Satur꧟day evening flew to Mumbai from Goa by a charte♕red flight. Shinde, who had flown to Goa in the morning, accompanied them back.
Shinde h�༒�as the support of 10 legislators of smaller parties and independents and 106 MLAs of the BJP in the 288-member House.
Out of thꦉe 287 legislators, 271 voted, while three MLAs —Rais Shaikh, Abu Azmi (both of the Samajwadi Party) and Shah Farukh (AIMIM)— abstained from voting.
As many as🧜 12 MLAs did not attend the Speaker's election in th🤡e House.
Two of them —Laxman Jagtap and Mukta Tilak (of the BJP)— are suffering from serious ailments. Two NCP legislatไors —Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik— are in jail in conn🃏ection with different money laundering cases. Four other NCP MLAs —Dattatray Bharane, Anna Bansode, Nilesh Lanke and Babandada Shinde— did not show up.
"Bharane did not attend the Speaker's election because of his mother's deat♍h a few days back," an NCP leader sai☂d.
Two Congress MLAs —Praniti Shinde and Jitesh Antapurkar— also did not attend the session. Antapurkar is getting married o🍌n Sunday.
Praniti Shinde is out 𒉰of the country, a Congress functionary said.
AIMIM MLA Mufti Mohammad Ismail al꧟so did not attend the session.
Senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra minister Balasaheb Thorat, Thorat, in a statement on the floor of the House while congratulating Narvekar, said, "The Speaker's election took place in a transparent way. This is what we🐠 had been demanding with the governor for quite some time. It seems the governor was slee♊ping for one-and-a-half years."
Earlier this year, leaders of the then ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance had urged Koshya🔯ri to approve the schedule foꦛr the Assembly Speaker’s election during the budget session in March.
Prior to it, in a previous legislature session, the then MVA government had amend🤪ed the existing rules to facilitate the Speaker’s election through a voice vote. The governor had described the decision as unconstitutional and sought legal opinion.
In a separate development, the Shinde-led Sena faction sealed the legisl💧ative party office in the Vidhan Bhavan in Mu💜mbai ahead of the two-day special assembly session.
A white paper was stuck with a plastic tape on the closed doors of the Sena legislative party office in the Vidhan Bhavan, with a message in Marathi written on. It said, "The office is closed as per instruction🎶s of the Shiv Sena legislative party.&⛦quot;
(With PTI inputs)
